What the Thunder Said
by Altariel
Summary: Faramir and the retreat from Osgiliath. Mithril Awards - Runner-up, Best LoTR.
1. Chapter I

A/N: I hadn't intended to write any more about the rest of Faramir's war, since Isabeau has done it so magnificently. But this kind of materialized today, and there will be a couple more parts. It follows straight on from _Death by Water, so if you haven't read that yet, you'd best go there first. _

***

**What the Thunder Said**

I

_'In that dream, I thought the eastern sky grew dark and there was a growing thunder, but in the West a pale light lingered, and out of it I heard a voice, remote but clear, crying... "Isildur's Bane shall waken, And the Halfling forth shall stand."'_

In Ithilien I thought I might find, for a brief time, some solace. I quit Osgiliath and crossed the river, and reached our sanctuary at Henneth Annûn just before sunset, as I had hoped, and as I walked into the rock-chamber the setting sun splintered the Window-curtain into bright jewels. Warmly my company welcomed me, as if I had returned home from a long journey; and we broke bread together as if the Shadow had finally departed. Glad I was to learn that the Valar had protected them all in the weeks I had been away; for, indeed, the shadows were lengthening in Ithilien. My business now was the safe withdrawal of my men west of the Anduin; and before that we had more blood to shed. 

Then there came even into this small peace a double sorrow. For beyond belief and out of my dreams walked the Halfling. Great fear I felt to behold him, for if this dream had now come true, what then of those that portended the ruin of Gondor? And at last I learnt the meaning of the riddle of Isildur's Bane. 

What was I offered, in that brief yet seemingly endless moment of temptation? A tremor assailed my thoughts, and then I saw a vision of Ithilien, no longer growing wild, but a garden again, with fair flowers of many hues, the home once more of all those driven from their lands. Passing down the road towards the river, I saw tall towers rising before me, and then I rode along a wide avenue lined with fair buildings wrought of white stone and silver. Thus I came to the Anduin, and crossed a mighty bridge, a fitting monument to my brother. This was Osgiliath, built anew, a city of grace and wisdom. Here all the majesty of Númenor had been restored, and yet was enhanced by the wisdom of Gondor from these the latest years of the ancient race of Westernesse. 

In slow parade I came riding across the Pelennor, and all the folk of Gondor, from Minas Tirith to Dol Amroth, from Anórien to Poros, had gathered to greet me. And I made my way to the gates of the city - Minas Anor once again - and there stood my father; and on his face - such a look! Of pride, honour, love. A look which I had oft beheld, but from the side, as it was directed past me and towards my brother. 

Such fine visions these were; of all I had ever desired. Yet I have dreamt much throughout my life, and it seemed to me as I marvelled at these sights that they were different in quality, being clearer but harsher, as if a cold light shone upon them. Ithilien was pale, and Osgiliath more chilled than its ruin, and my father's smiling face had a sickly pallor. How unlike this was to even my most dreadful dreams of Númenor, or of that last sweet dream of my brother after his death. 

And then I could taste the sharp salt of the Sea at Dol Amroth, and it drove away the unwholesome flavour of the deceits. For I thought of my uncle, whom I had ever loved and admired as gentle and chivalrous. I remembered the long walks we had taken together, he and I, along high coastal paths. I would speak of what I had been reading and thinking; and he in turn would tell me his memories of his beloved sister, my mother, how she had dearly loved her younger son. 

And so it was that I was recalled to myself; but not as the brother of Boromir, ever anxious to prove himself an equal in combat; nor yet as the son of Denethor, struggling to prove beyond doubt his fealty - but as Faramir of Gondor, who had striven hard but uncertainly throughout his life to conduct himself wisely, and who found now that the choice was not for glory in war, nor obedience to a proud master, but what seemed to be the fool's choice. And it came to me that even if that was what it proved to be, still I should be able to face death with honour, knowing I had been true and not mocked myself with falsehood. But how I sorrowed, for I could guess what it was Boromir had seen in his turn: weapons and battles, and armies and alliances, and his own triumph in Mordor, and I knew he had beheld himself as King of Gondor. My poor brother. 

And what of my second sorrow? I saw that it had come at last, as I had feared it would throughout my life: the choice between duty and integrity. _I am yours to command, sire. How oft had I said that to him? Always I had believed I spoke the truth; yet I perceived now that it was not the case. In this I was not his to command, and he had long known it, and despised me for saying otherwise. I should never have given that promise so lightly. For I had made of myself a liar, to my father and lord. Such were the thoughts unsteadying me long ere I rode back across the Pelennor, and the winged terror raped my reason. _


	2. Chapter II

A/N: This is all a bit depressing. One more part after this. 

***

II

_He who was living is now dead_

_We who are living are now dying_

_With a little patience_

There are some who say Mithrandir brings only an ill wind. Not I. My companions and I would not have gained the city without him. Barely any distance from the gates, the winged terror descended upon us. The fear that Boromir and I had withstood at Osgiliath had been increased tenfold, and this time my brother was not nigh to support me. This time it was as if a thunderbolt tore through my temples; and then the shrieking began, scraping through my mind. Dragging together these remnants of my senses, I forced myself to turn Aryn to ride back to my companions, who had been unhorsed. And then, like a flash of lightning, Mithrandir shot across the field towards us, and the thunderous onslaught of the terror was diminished before his white fury. 

But the sensation of unreality was not abated as I made my way up to the citadel. First, I beheld another Halfling from my dreams - and wearing the silver and black of the Tower. And, then, I had to face my father. How different his expression from that I had beheld in my vision! Cold and severe he was, and the candlelight cast cruel shadows along the sharp lines of his features. The flickering of the flames upon his face unsteadied me further. Glad I was again that Mithrandir was beside me for, at length, I could no longer counter my lord's wrath, and Mithrandir spoke in my place. Had he not been there, I believe I would have fallen down before my father's feet and begged for his forgiveness - and I do not doubt I would not have had it. As it was, I held myself in check, barely. 

At length my lord gave me leave, and I retired to my chamber. It was proving harder and harder to set one foot before the other. Reaching my room at last, I sat down wearily in my chair. Tremors from that terrible assault were still shuddering through my mind, and my eyes seemed now and again to lose focus, as if the light about me were all of a sudden dimmed. At first I did not hear the gentle tapping at the door, but it became more and more insistent. 

'Come!' I said wearily, drawing a hand across my face, for I had little strength left for speech, and I dreaded another such costly encounter. 

'My lord. You are weary. I shall not detain you long.'

It was Mithrandir. I gestured wordlessly at the chair opposite, and he sat. We gazed upon each other. I had lit only a single candle, and his face was half-hidden in the gloom. And as I looked on him, I wondered what power it was he held to have kindled in me a love greater than that I held for my own sire. 

'It was the right choice,' he said, at length. 

'Indeed?'

'And I know what it cost to make it.'

I laughed, a little wildly. 'Do you know my father's final instructions to me before I set out for Ithilien? _Make me proud, he said.' I shook my head. 'It seems I do not know how to do that, even when presented with such a chance as I have __never had before. Alas indeed my brother was not there for him, and that I was not slain at Rauros,' I concluded bitterly._

'Yet I at least am thankful that it was you and not Boromir in Ithilien,' Mithrandir replied quietly. 'For had your places been exchanged, your brother would have brought ruin upon us all. You know this in your heart, Faramir.' 

I put my head into my hands, and then felt the press of his against them. 'Try to sleep,' he said. 'Your father's mood will be little better in the morning, and you have enemies enough to face without spending your strength on combating him.'

He left me then, and I blew out the candle and tried to do what he had told me; but lying there on the bed I could hear the echo of that dreadful screaming, and I was left shivering in the dark. In time, I gave up on sleep and, wrapping a blanket around me, I lit the candle, sat back in my chair and picked up a book. But my mind was too tired to follow the words and, in the end, I simply sat and dozed, and waited for the first brown light of dawn to enter through my window. Then I rose, and prepared myself to attend the meeting of the council. 

Sitting outside the council chamber, awaiting the Lord of the City to call us in to him, I rested my head in my hands and rubbed at the grit in my eyes. I was not aware for a while that a figure had come to stand before me.

'Does the Lord Faramir have naught to say in greeting to his kinsman?' a dear voice said. 

'Uncle!' I cried in joy; and I stood, and we embraced. Nigh on two years had passed since last he had come to Minas Tirith, and no time had I had to journey to the coast. Seeing him once again reminded me how much I had missed him. He spoke softly some words about my brother, to console us both in our grief; then he held my face between his hands for a moment and a look of concern passed over him. 'You look fit to drop,' he said. 'When did you return to the city?'

'Yester eve, and under darkness,' I said. 'But,' and I glanced behind him at the still closed door, 'Things do not stand well between us.'

He muttered a low curse, most unlike his usual courtesy. 'Naught changes with the Lord Denethor, then. What was your offence on this occasion?'

Although I would trust my uncle with my soul, Mithrandir had not given me leave to speak about the errand of the Ringbearer, and I did not wish to broach the matter in such an open place. But I could say enough that would put him close to the mark. 'What has my offence ever been, uncle?' I said sadly. 'I am not Boromir, and that is enough. And now I live while he does not. That, I think, can never be pardoned.' As I finished speaking, we were summoned in, and he had time only to press my hand very quickly. 

Perhaps if I had argued that we should defend the fords and the Pelennor at all costs, my father would have decided otherwise. For their defence seemed to me futile; and, worse, for it would needlessly cost the lives of many brave men. But this way, at least, I had obliged him by preferring a course whose denial better suited his wrath towards me. 

This was to be my punishment, I reflected, as I left the council chamber; and he could not have chosen a surer fate for me than if he had sent me straight for execution. And then my spirit failed me, and I had to stop as I walked along the passageway to regain my composure. I put my forearm against the wall to steady myself, and rested my head upon it. My left hand strayed wearily to my sword hilt. Then I felt a hand upon my back. I turned to behold my uncle. He seemed to be somewhat in shock, his face grey. We clasped arms, and for a moment it seemed that I was comforting him. 'In the name of all the Valar, ride safe, son,' he implored me. 

I looked back at him steadily. 'This is a bitter parting, but let us at least not deceive ourselves,' I said quietly. 'For we both know that if I return alive, it will have taken all the grace of the Valar to ensure it. And it shall not be in accordance with the will of the Steward.' 

Then we embraced, and I bowed my head and rested it for a moment on his shoulder. Then I left the citadel, bound for Osgiliath, and the fate which my father had judged I deserved.


	3. Chapter III

III

_I have perceived much beauty  
In the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight;  
Heard music in the silentness of duty;  
Found peace where shell-storms spouted reddest spate._

It was only a little while after we abandoned the Causeway Forts to the enemy that I felt my mind begin its last disintegration. The only sense that I could make of all around me was to believe that I had indeed at last wandered from the waking world, and entered entirely the lands of my dreaming. All about me was turned upon itself. For although we fought hard and unstintingly, still all we did was fall back, and die. And at the end of it I knew there would be no victory worthy of song; for all we hoped for was a less worse defeat. 

The world about became absurd; all beauty lost in terror. I watched men that I knew to be gentle slash at the bodies and the bones of the enemy, and laugh as they did it; and this, it seemed to me, was the true triumph of our Enemy, to turn us, in our desperation, into the very image of his cruelty and remorselessness. Or else it was that all that was of worth counted as naught. I saw courage and valour rewarded only with extinction; the young man, no older than his twentieth year, running back, stopping at whiles to turn and fight, ever dragging beside him the friend who had taken an arrow just after the retreat began. I would have bowed my head and bent down on both knees to honour them in the Great Hall of the White Tower itself, save they were hewed down not a mile from the city. 

Again and again, on the faces of all those I slew, I would catch a glimpse of the face of the first man I ever killed, when I was seventeen years old and stationed near Poros, and we were attacked at night by the Haradrim. I had looked upon his strange features for only a moment before turning to defend myself from another, but I have ever wondered about him, and who had grieved to learn of his death, as I now grieved for Boromir. And this parade of faces, old and new, flickered past me in shades of red and black; lit up in the gloom which hung upon us by the fiery flashes of the torches our enemies bore, and the flames that charred the homesteads of the Pelennor. 

I longed for the sight of pure white light, and for a drink of clean clear water. Worst of all, there was no stillness here, only noise, for hour upon hour. I could pick out no sense in the cacophony - it was as if it were the very clamour of Morgoth, sowing the seeds of discord into the music of making. One moment I would catch a voice I knew cry out in anguish, as another of my friends fell; and then I was listening to the triumph in the yells and the shouts of the Southrons in their harsh and grating tongue. Now and again, struggling to be heard above the rout, there came back to me my own voice, growing hoarser as the day declined, shouting out commands and what encouragements I could. But accompanying all, a dire disharmony, there was the steady beat of the wings of the terror above, and the sudden shrill piercing of their shrieks. And as the hours went on, it was this that seemed most real to me, while all else became muffled. 

There came a point where speech failed me, for I had grasped at last that despite all our toil, and how close we were, we would not reach the city. Thus it was that speaking no longer served any purpose, and all that remained was the brute act of raising my arm to kill, until I was killed in my turn. And then, half a mile and an age from the gate, I heard something else rising above the noise of battle. A voice was singing, faint and forlorn at first; and then the tune was picked up by all those of the out-companies that could still summon the will and, as I fought, I found I could sing too, through my tears. And then the song was taken up strongly by the men watching on the walls, as if by the sound of their voices they might carry us home to them safely. The words were clumsy, but they told of our love for Gondor, of the courage and persistence of our people, of our steadfast rejection of the Enemy. 

_Brought from the west a star still shines, _

_Undaunted in these darkened times, _

_Although besieged by battle lines - _

_Gondor still abides._

_From Belfalas to Rauros tall,            _

_The grace of Gondor gifts us all      _

_With strength to stand and not to fall; _

_Fair Gondor shall abide. _

_Though shadows all about us press, _

_No darkness has devised a test        _

_To fell the men of Westernesse,     _

_And Gondor will abide. _

_We fearless face the battle lines,    _

_For in the west a star still shines _

_Triumphant in these troubled times, _

_Brave Gondor still abides._

It was not until many weeks later, sitting in peace with friends and able at last to talk of that day, that I learned that that first voice had been mine. I have no memory of that at all. 

As the song ended I heard, on the very edge of my awareness, what seemed to be the silver sound of a trumpet, and I thought I caught a cry go up: _'Amroth for Gondor! Amroth to Faramir!' But, in truth, I was no longer listening, for ere we had reached the final verse, a thunderbolt had struck me, and I had welcomed it, because it meant the end. All at last was falling quiet, save for a thin whisper that promised me what I most desperately desired. Silence. _

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A/N: First I must apologize for my ghastly doggerel. I was going to drop it, then Caerulea remarked that this piece lacked a soundtrack! vbg If you think it's appallingly awful, let me know (privately!) and I'll cut it. I haven't written any verse for about fifteen years, but the situation seemed to call for it. And I have certainly never been called upon to write some inspirational words for a retreating army. On the strength of this I doubt I ever shall be, thank god. 

I guess this now segues nicely into _The Fire Sermon, so if this one has utterly depressed you, you're directed there__. Thanks to Stargazer for pointing out that I was in fact writing a single story! And I utterly promise you, Kayla, that I am now turning my undivided attention back to Faramir and Éowyn! That story now stands at about 2,000 words and rising..._

Although I appropriated the thunder as a symbol of something less than nice in this story, in _The Waste Land what the thunder says is, 'Giving, sympathy, self-control.' Which I think is very Faramir. _

Quotation attribution: Guessing you recognize the author of the bit at the start of part I; chapter II is my old mate TSE; and the lines at the start of chapter III are by Wilfred Owen, 1893-1918. 

Thank you for reading and responding, it means a great deal to me. 

Altariel

February 8-11, 2002


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